UC and national labs tackle pressing safety issues with innovative research

By Wallace RavvenTuesday 16 October 2012

A unique
collaboration between a law professor and chemist to use forensic science to
investigate potential weapons of mass destruction and a novel way to monitor
carbon emissions in urban areas are among new projects funded by the UC
Laboratory Fees Research Program.

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It’s not easy find the expertise needed to assess the
accuracy of decisions around weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or to measure
infinitesimal amounts of atmospheric gases. Failing to accomplish either could
jeopardize our safety.

But researchers at the University of California and Los Alamos and Livermore national
laboratories are pooling their unique strengths and applying them to such pressing
challenges as national security, greenhouse gases and alternative energy.

The UC Laboratory Fees Research Program was created in 2008 to
boost support for collaborations among UC faculty, their graduate students and
scientists and engineers at the UC-managed national labs. A
portion of the fees that UC receives for managing the Los Alamos and Livermore
labs funds the program.

Forensic science is playing a growing role in national security
investigations into terrorism and weapons proliferation.

One of the new laboratory fee projects is a study to
determine if common decision-making biases might affect forensic scientists investigating potential weapons of mass destruction. The research could help
shape U.S. policy regarding the attribution of criminal terrorist events in
which chemical, biological or radiological agents are used.

Often, the right answer to a problem is not always
the most obvious one. After all, following hunches and taking
cognitive shortcuts is human nature. But it’s disconcerting to think that
experts trained to identify potential WMDs may be vulnerable to the same
pitfalls.

Steven Velsko, a chemist and forensic scientist at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory, is one of a growing number of researchers who
see a pressing need to increase vigilance against mental shortcuts that could
mislead even the ablest experts as they trace the source of a biological threat.

Wrong conclusions by one scientist can snowball into an
unfounded consensus among team members, Velsko said, such as incorrectly identifying the source of a deadly virus, or determining
the credibility of DNA analysis.

Last year, Velsko sought the help of William Thompson, a
psychologist and lawyer at UC Irvine, who analyzes just such cognitive glitches
in studies of the use and misuse of DNA testing and other scientific evidence in
criminal trials.

Now, a UC Laboratory Fees Research Program grant funds a
collaboration between Velsko, Thompson and their colleagues to address these
potential hazards before they seep into decision-making and lead to the wrong — potentially dangerous —
conclusions by WMD forensics specialists.

The project aims first to find out how prone WMD forensics
experts are to certain cognitive traps and then to identify possible weaknesses
in communication channels — places where misunderstandings can lead
to bad decisions.

One common error that can perpetuate wrong conclusions,
Velsko said, is “satisficing” — a term combining satisfying and
sufficing. Once analysts draw a tentative conclusion based on strong evidence,
they tend to pay close attention to new evidence that confirms that hypothesis
and discount evidence of contrary possibilities.

Health experts investigating a cholera outbreak in Haiti
after the country's devastating 2010 earthquake first concluded on the basis of DNA analysis
that the virus was brought into the country by United Nations aid workers from
Nepal. But the fact that two samples show very similar DNA sequences doesn’t
mean that one of them is the source.

“Later
analysis showed that the Haiti strain was also similar to strains from Africa,”
Velsko said, “implying that the Nepal connection might be premature.”

The same logic error, of course, could be made in pinpointing
where a source of deadly viruses or other biological weapons come from.

Thompson said that the opportunity for UC Irvine criminology
and psychology graduate students to work with Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory forensic scientists offers a rich opportunity for exchange at both
institutions. He and Velsko are encouraged at how open forensic experts are to
assessing potential vulnerabilities.

“They know that human factors play a key role in
intelligence investigations, and that minimizing error and bias is vital to
good decision-making,” Thompson said.

Untangling urban
sources of greenhouse gases

At a time when greenhouse gas concentrations continue to
rise exponentially, many cities are looking for strategies to reduce carbon
emissions within their borders. But there’s a hitch. Atmospheric scientists
have a clear understanding of greenhouse gaseson a global scale, but parsing
out manmade from natural sources in urban areas remains a challenge.

Of course, cars and some industrial processes spew out
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases through combustion of fuel. But
lawns, trees and vegetation in and around cities also pump out
large volumes of CO2 through the process of respiration, and they
absorb large volumes of CO2 through photosynthesis.

To monitor carbon emissions, scientists and engineers need a
way to identify what proportion of greenhouse gases are manmade and which are from the greenery around us.

To address this challenge, UC Merced environmental engineer
Elliott Campbell will team with scientists Brian LaFranchi and Philip
Cameron-Smith at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who have developed
sophisticated instruments to measure different types of carbon dioxide.

A UC lab fees grant will allow them to test a new and
precise way to sample, measure and analyze air above cities.

The team will exploit the fact that different types of
carbon-containing gases follow different paths. A form of carbon dioxide known
as 14CO2 is released by plant respiration, but not by fuel combustion. Another
gas, carbonyl sulfide, or COS, is primarily absorbed by plants. By measuring
these three gases in cities, the researchers can deduce how much
of total urban CO2
is manmade.

“COS measurements haven’t been used to investigate urban
greenhouse gas emissions,” Campbell said. “We think this will be a powerful
tool to help untangle the different sources of greenhouse gases above cities.”

He cautions that the cost of the analysis with some of these
highly sophisticated instruments would not be practical for cities. But the
first goal is to determine if the strategy works. Engineers can then develop
ways to make the procedures cost-effective.

The initial studies use
sensitive instruments developed by Livermore Lab scientists to measure 14CO2 and COS.
Campbell’s graduate students will work with Livermore lab scientists to assess how well the
novel approach works. The new measurements will be
incorporated into models of atmospheric processes developed by Campbell at UC
Merced. The team hopes the research will refine strategies that cities can use
in the fight against global warming.